Lessons from Ghost Wars

Steve Coll's book Ghost Wars was a marvelously written history of our involvement with Afghanistan from the late seventies to 9/11. His new edition contains facts that came out of the official U.S. investigation. The book reveals many points at which decisions were made that had far-reaching effects, such that things could have turned out differently. Such books cast doubt over histories that portray events along one overreaching narrative, whether it is Chomsky or Podhoretz.

We helped create the power of radical Islamism, initially by facilitating the rule of Ibn Saud's family over the area we now call Saudi Arabia (which was intimately bound with radical Wahhabi preaching), and more directly, through supporting the mujahedin in their war with the Soviets. Since we failed to have a CIA presence in Afghanistan, we relied almost entirely on Pakistan's intelligence agency, the ISI, and in the process made both the ISI and the mujahedin very powerful...with even more support from the now-rich Saudis. When the Soviets left, we completely disregarded the country. We cannot afford to do so again. So we cannot just pull out without there being a strong government. Otherwise, the Taliban will facilitate radical Islamic terrorism, as they did before.

But it has now been over 8 years since 9/11. What has Afghanistan become? What have the Taliban become? What has Pakistan become? We need to realize that Pakistan continually lied to us about their support for radical Islamists in order to fuel terrorist activity in Kashmir against India. India is always their biggest worry and they will do what they think they need to do. One has to wonder how stable their civilian government is. The main two actors are not much recommended. Will the military seize control again? However, one should be cheered that they are finally taking some action against rebels in the west of their country. And one should be cheered that the Obama administration is engaged with both countries and is attempting to force the Karzai government to reform.

The last third of the book concerns the activities of Al Qaeda and our various government entities, who knew he had big plans and were very worried. This history involves many more failures on our government's part. It easily could have turned out differently. 9/11 could have been prevented. You might also check out James Bamford's book The Shadow Factory, for more specific failures by the NSA in this regard.

All that said, we need to get beyond the surge mentality of the right. Afghanistan is a very different place than Iraq. There will never be a simple military solution. As Steve Coll reminds us in his blog at the New Yorker (which I have linked to on this page), we first need to consider what our goals are. I think that he is right that one of them has to be to prevent the Taliban from coming to power again. Unfortunately, that is going to involve negating their power in the south, the Pashtun land of Baluch.